San Francisco Foghorn

              SAN FRANCISCO fOQHORN
Volume 71, Number 3
September 24,1976
City clogs it — students hold it
by Philippe Marcou
The S. F. Water Department deluged USF's
plumbing system with
sand last Monday morning, resulting in a complete shutdown of lavatory facilities in nine of
the campuses twelve
buildings.
The Water Department,
sometime between nine
and eleven A.M., raised
the pressure in the main
water line under Golden
Gate Avenue in an attempt
to flush out an accumulation of sand and dirt.
According to normal
procedure USF should
have been advised to close
its water mains. No such
warning, however, was
given and the dislodged
dirt and sand came pouring into the USF water
supply.
The first signs of trouble
began to appear around
9:30 a.m. when a janitor reported to the residential
life receptionist that a
toilet on second floor
Phelan was continuously
flushing. This was followed by further reports
between 11:00 and 11:30
a.m. from fifth floor
Hayes-Healy and Phelan
of malfunctioning toilets
and loss of water pressure.
At this point. Residential
Life notified plant concerning the incidents.
By noon the desk at the
Plant  Office   was   over
whelmed with calls as reports from all over the
campus came pouring in.
The Plant Director, Paul
Waddington, and Chief Engineer, Harold Hansen,
were informed and immediately called the S.F. Water Service Department.
The Department responded that it knew nothing about the situation but
would send men over immediately. The Plant staff
meanwhile proceeded to
disconnect all on-campus
machinery which utilized
water and checked the
campus water support system for any signs of an
above or underground
leak.
The Water Department
service man failed to arrive despite repeated calls
from the Plant staff. The
Water Department re-
sonded to each call with
the statement that their
man was "on the way," or
"in the area."
By early afternoon the
Plant engineers had completed their initial inspection of the campus facilities and had no alternative
but to await the Water Department. The water pressure on campus by this
time had fallen from a normal of 80 pounds per
square inch to 35.
The Water Department
service man arrived finally at about 5:30 p.m. and
checked the City's meters.
He claimed the problem
was on campus and left.
The Plant engineers began a systematic attempt
to pinpoint the problem after the service man's departure. The water supply
to each affected building
was cut off and then
turned on, after all the
sand had been screened
out of the toilet valves.
Since none of the lavatories in the buildings could
be used during this time
any sign of water flow
would indicate a leak in
the buildings checked.
At this time, the Plant
engineers were unaware
that the sand had been
pumped by the Water Department. It was thought
to have been stirred up by
the shutting on and off of
the water supply during
the course of the difficulties.
U.S.F. students, in the
meantime, had been
without lavatory facilities
since noon. By evening
students were becoming
desperate and resorting to
bushes and occasionally
windows (there were reports of passers-by the
dorms being "rained" on).
A flood in the basement
of Gillson during the engineers' checkup of the
building added to the confusion, causing the elevators to be closed down
246 Tickets Bargained Away
By Mike Hanna
.246 of the best seats for
the USF home basketball
games are no longer available to students on a seasonal or per-game basis.
The first six rows of seats
in section E have been
sold to the general public
as season tickets for $55 a
seat.
Early last summer the
decision was made to cut
out the first six rows of
seats in section E, court
floor, center court, because of two reasons, according to Bill Fusco, the
sports information director.
The first reason was that
students were either
selling or giving their
tickets to non-students.
The other reason he gave
was the harassment of
coach Bob Galliard during
the home games. According to Fusco, there was a
small group of students at
every game that sat behind the bench, were yelling, and generally making
it hard for Mr. Galliard to
do his job.
However,   the   students
did not completely lose
out, according to Stan
Roualdes, ASUSF president and a participant in
the summer "deal" conference that made this decision. The other participants were Lisa Gheno,
chairperson of Welcome
Week; Bill Fusco, and Ann
Dolan, Vice President of
Student Affairs.
Stan Roualdes states
that the students gained
about 600 seats in the bargain. These additional
seats are in the upper deck
general admission section. As such, they can't be
purchased as season tickets, and the seats are not
as good, but they should
avoid the problem that we
had at the sell-out games
last year.
Last year the number of
tickets available for students on a per-game basis
was 1450, of which almost
500 were student reserved
season tickets. Currently,
there are 2000 tickets
available to students but
only 246 of those are available on a season ticket basis.
In separate interviews
Dr. Dolan and Bill Fusco
gave separate primary
reasons for the decision.
Mr. Fusco gave the harassment of the coach as his
main reason, and Dr.
Dolan said the financial
gain from the sale of the
tickets was one of the primary reasons for the decision. Dr. Dolan said the
highest single game revenue from ticket sales was
$8990. By selling the reserved section to the general public instead of to
the students for $5, the revenue would increase by
$12,000 for the year.
In perspective, all parties agreed that the financial question was not as
crucial as had been
thought. Since this was
the case, a discission of
the alternative solutions
to the problem was in
order.
At the June meeting it
was admitted that alternative solutions to the problem were not discussed.
Such solution have in fact
been implemented. Tickets that, are marked for stu-
while R.A.'s battled to
keep the water out of the
lounge and elevator shafts.
Another flood in the
Common's kitchen was
caught by the plant engineers during their inspection of the building before
it caused any damage. The
flooding in Harney, however, was more extensive
and ruined the ceiling of
the computer room before
it was discovered.
By 11:30 p.m. the crisis
had ended. Plant engineers had finally finished
checking the dorms, and
finding no leaks, reopened
the bathrooms to the students.
Not until 8 a.m. Tuesday
morning, however, was a
Water Department official
contacted and the source
of the problem discovered.
The official offered an
apology from the Water department—but no explanation.
Plant director Paul Waddington is not satisfied
with the apology and
plans to file with
the Water Deparment's
Claims section for an estimated $2,200 to $1,500 overtime and damages.
-" »Aw*r
Chavez on Prop 14
United Farmworkers
President Cesar Chavez
will be on the USF campus
to speak in favor of the
Yes on 14 campaign in
Northern California. He
will be speaking in
McLaren 252 on the 30th of
September, this Thursday,
at 3:30 p.m.
Chavez is being jointly
sponsored by a number of
groups on campus. Most
notably this is a joint effort of the Law School Student Bar Association and
ASUSF. The other ASUSF
groups that are sponsoring the talk are La Raza
Unida. and SEC.
Chavez, one of the best
known and most trusted
leaders in America for his
long struggle on behalf of
the poor and all minority
groups, will be encourag
ing people to register to
vote and join the Yes on 14
campaign.
Proposition 14, the
Farmworker Election
Law, would reenact by
vote of the people, the
Agricultural Labor Relations Act now in effect, in
order to ensure the secret
ballot rights of farmworkers against legislative erosion, and prevent the
shut-down of the overseeing Board as happened in
1976.
dents can no longer be
sold to non-students, and
the problem of noise can
easily be solved by stressing more crowd control on
the part of the security
guards.
Upon further questioning, Stan Roualdes admitted that he underestimated
student reaction, and had
not given full examination
to the possible alternatives.
In defense of their decision Dr. Dolan replied in a
number of areas. First, she
said that there were really
no bad seats in the USF
gym, and that we had
actually gained in the
long-run. She also compared USF to other
schools in the area as to
student seating, and said
that USF came out ahead.
Dr. Dolan also replied that
Stan and Lisa provided
adequate student input to
the decisionmaking process.
In response to demands
by the ASUSF  Senate  a
continued on page 11